He would have to be preserved for the several week voyage back to Britain.
When John Paul Jones was located by the US search in Paris ( 114 years after his death at age 45) during the good Roosevelt’s administration he was found buried in an airtight lead coffin filled with alcohol and was thus preserved.
Upon being brought back to the US aboard the cruiser Brooklyn, when approaching the coast, Jones got escorted by three more cruisers and seven battleships. Would have been worth seeing.
Thank you. That would explain the pickling better than the book did. And I’d never heard about the alcohol filled lead casket of John Paul Jones until this thread. A good day.